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 198 The Religion of the Veda

Operations on such a scale are calculated to show the magnates of the present day meatupacking trust that they have yet to learn from these archﬂattercrs a trick or two in the way of collecting cattle.

If my hearers shall ask: now what, after all this, is the essence of Rig—Vcdic religion, I am for my part not unready to answer in accordance with hints thrown out before. It is poetry, or rather, more precisely, poetic cxaltation, or the pride and joy of poetic creativencss. This is at ﬁrst conceived to be favored and promoted by the gods, because they get the fruit of it in the form of praise and ﬂattery. The ﬁner the frenzy of the poet and the more ﬁnished the product of his art, the hotter pleased are the gods. Therefore the gods, northern operate with the poets, promoting their devotion and its expression. Finally, these twin factors of devoted fervor and its successful utterance in hymns and stanzas create sensations of satisfaction which are easily taken for sanctiﬁcation. At first the article is not very genuine. But it goes on being the receptacle of better thoughts until it grows into What we may consider real religious feeling.

To some extent we can test this statement by showing what the religious feeling of the Veda is not, rather than what it is. The frank system of barter of the sacriﬁcer’s some: and ghee for the god’s